News

Interplay Making Money, But Not Enough

Even after selling off several franchises, Interplay still in the red.

Interplay released its operating results for the second quarter of 2004 and while at first glance there may be some reason for optimism, the company is far from being healthy again. Not all is bad news, as Interplay has received notice from NASDAQ that the company will remain listed.

Commenting on the announcements, Interplay Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Herve Caen said, "This has been an incredibly challenging first half of 2004 for Interplay, its investors and employees. Although significant hurdles remain, we are pleased to be back in compliance with the OTC Bulletin Board, moved into our new corporate offices, and moving forward with our plan to enter into Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming."

Overall, the reported results are semi positive; compared to last year, net revenues are up (albeit negative), and operating loss has decreased. The increase in net revenues was mainly because of continuing sales of older, but popular, titles such as Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel as well as the $1.175 million Fallout 3 rights sell-off to Bethesda Softworks, although the Fallout MMORPG plans remain with Interplay.

Somewhat curious is the sale of Interplay's Redneck Rampage franchise to Vivendi Universal Games, which oddly enough claims to not have any plans at all for future titles in the series.

For people interested in a summary of what has happened over the past few months :

Since we were having difficulty meeting our payroll obligations on a timely basis to our employees a large number of our employees stopped reporting to work in late May and early June 2004. We were subsequently evicted from our building at 16815 Von Karman Avenue in Irvine, California in mid June 2004. We have a core group of approximately 20 employees on payroll, of which approximately 8 are actively working from the new company location in Irvine, California.